After the ascension of Jesus, many early Christians decided to leave Jerusalem to spread the religion. Some Christians eventually came to Ethiopia, but the communities were not significant until the 4th century.
Frumentius and Aedesius, two Syrian Christians, were shipwrecked on the Red Sea coast and taken as slaves to the Aksumite court during the reign of King Ezana. Frumentius gained the trust of the royal family and was eventually freed, becoming a prominent advisor to the young King Ezana. By 330 AD, King Ezana of the Aksumite Empire converted to Christianity. About ten years later, Christianity became the official religion of the Aksumite Empire.
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church itself claims to have been established in 330 AD.
The Nine Saints
During the late 5th century, nine Christians (often called the Syriac Nine Saints, even though most of them were not Syrian) decided to do missions across Ethiopia.
Theses missions also served as permanent centers of Christian learning in which monks finally began to translate the Bible from Greek and Aramaic into Ethiopic so that Ethiopians could read Scripture for themselves.
Thus Christianity was no longer a religion for the small percentage of Ethiopians who could read Greek or Aramaic/Syriac, but for all Ethiopians.
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